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Time and space are an illusion that will cease.

What comes afterward is the true reality that we cannot presently sense nor survive. That is why our bodies must change; matter is inherently corruptible, and is not compatible with the relm of God. Time is an illusion, as Christ aptly described in his assertion: “Before Abraham was, I Am.”

I agree with Randy Alcorn in his HEAVEN:

That perspective is an UNBIBLICAL example of 'Christo-Platonism' . . . and, imho, no small amount of

ASSUMPTIONS about Scripture instead of

ACCEPTING SCRIPTURE at logical, straightforward value for what it says.

It also smacks of no small amount of gnosticism, to me.

p10-11 [as usual Quixicated emphases added]:
"Jesus said of the devil, 'When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. " (John 8:44). Some of Satan's favorite lies are about Heaven. Revelation 13:6 tells us the satanic beast "opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander His name and His dwelling place and those who live in heaven.' Our enemy slanders three things: God's person, God's people and God's place--namely, Heaven."

"After being forcibly evicted from Heaven (Isaiah 14:12l-15), the devil became bitter not only toward God but toward mankind and toward Heaven itself; the place that was no longer his. It must be maddening for him that we're now entitled to the home he was kicked out of. What better way for the devil and his demons to attack us than to whisper lies about the very place on which God tells us to set our hearts and minds?"

"Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn't exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence. If we believe that lie, we'll be robbed of our joy and anticipation, we'll set our minds on this life and not the next, and we won't be motivated to share our faith. Why should we share the 'good news' that people can spend eternity in a boring, ghostly place that even we're not looking forward to?"

. . .

"Satan hates the New Heaven and the New Earth as much as a deposed dictator hates the new nation and new government that replaces his. Satan cannot stop Christ's redemptive work, but he can keep us from seeing the breadth and depth of redemption that extends to the earth and beyond [all creation waits groaningly yearning for the manifestation of the sons of God]. He cannot keep Christ from defeating him, but he can persuade us that Christ's victory is only partial, that God will abandon His original plan for mankind and the earth."

[Alcorn quotes John 14:1-3 at the beginning of the INTRODUCTION on page xvii]

John 14:1-3:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to preapare a PLACE for you. And if I go and prepare a PLACE for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be WHERE I am." NIV

verse 2: New Living Translation (©2007)
There is more than enough room in my Father's home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a PLACE for you?

Young's Literal Translation
in the house of my Father are many mansions; and if not, I would have told you; I go on to prepare a PLACE for you.

John 14:1-3 (The Message)
The Road
1-4 "Don't let this throw you. You trust God, don't you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I'm taking."

John 14:1-3 (Amplified Bible)
1DO NOT let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated). You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me.

2In My Father's house there are many dwelling places (homes). If it were not so, I would have told you; for I am going away to prepare a place for you.

3And when (if) I go and make ready a place for you, I will come back again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.

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Quix: On p25, Alcorn discusses the literal aspects of a PLACE called Hell. And he notes that Jesus says more about Hell than anyone else—and in literal terms.

And on that page, he quotes T.S. Eliot:
“I had far rather walk, as I do, in daily terror of eternity, than feel that this was only a children’s game in which all the contestants would get equally worthless prizes in the end.”

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Part of his point is that Scripture is talking about REALITIES, not fantasies; not ethereals; not disembodied spiritualized no-WHERE’S but REAL, TANGIBLE, 3 [at least] DIMENSIONAL PLACES.

On p 48, Alcorn notes:

“The Bible teaches that sometimes humans are allowed to see into Heaven. . . . ‘Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’.’ (Acts 7:55-56). Scripture tells us NOT that Stephen dreamed this, but that he actually SAW it. “

Wayne Grudem points out that Stephen “did not see mere symbols of a state of existence. It was rather that his eyes were opened to see a spiritual dimension of reality which God has hidden from us in this present age, a dimension which none the less really does exist in our space/time universe, and within which Jesus now lives in His physical resurrected body, waiting even now for a time when He will return to earth.”

“I agree with Grudem that the present Heaven is a space/time universe. He may be right that it’s part of our own universe, or it may be in a different universe. It could be a universe next door that’s normally hidden but sometimes opened. In either case, it seems likely that God didn’t merely create a vision for Stephen in order to make Heaven appear physical. Rather, he allowed Stephen to see an intermediate Heaven that was (and is) physical.”

The prophet Elisha asked God to give his servant Gehazi, a glimpse of the invisible realm. He prayed, “’O Lord, open his eyes so he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). . . . “

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On p 53, Alcorn notes:

HEAVEN AS SUBSTANCE, EARTH AS SHADOW

“ . . . It [Hebrews] says that earthly priests ‘serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (Hebrews 8:5). Moses was told, in building the earthly tabernacle, “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain” (Hebrews 8:5). If that which was built after the pattern was physical, might it suggest the original was also physical?”

“The book of Hebrews seems to say that we should see Earth as a derivative realm and Heaven as the source realm. . . . “

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On p 55, Alcorn quotes from his novel SAFELY HOME

“Compared to what he now beheld, the world he’d come from was a land of shadows, colorless and two-dimensional. This place was fresh and captivating, resonating with color and beauty. He could not only see and hear it, but feel and smell and taste it. Every hillside, every mountain, every waterfall, every frolicking animal in the fields seemed to beckon him to come join them, to come from the outside and plunge into the inside. This whole world had the feel of cool water on a blistering August afternoon. The light beckoned him to dive in with abandon, to come join the great adventure.

“I know what this is,” Quan said.
“Tell me,” said the Carpenter.
“It’s the substance that casts all those shadows in the other world. The circles there are copies of the spheres here. The squares there are copies of the cubes here. The triangles there are copies of the pyramids here. Earth was a flatland. This is . . . well, the inside is bigger than the outside, isn’t it? How many dimensions are there?”

“Far more than you have seen yet,” the King said, laughing.

This is the Place that defines and gives meaning to all places,” Li Quan said. “I never imagined it would be like this.”52

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On p 58, he quotes C.S.Lewis:

“Women sometimes have the problem of trying to judge by artificial light how a dress will look by daylight. That is very like the problem for all of us: to dress our souls not for the electric lights of the present world but for the daylight of the next. The good dress is the one that will face that light. For that light will last longer.”

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In his intro to chapter 8

THIS WORLD IS NOT OUR HOME…OR IS IT?

on p 78, Alcorn quotes Anthony Hoekema:

God will make the new earth His dwelling place…Heaven and earth will then no longer be separated as they are now, but they will be one. But to leave the new earth out of consideration when we think of the final state of believers is greatly to impoverish biblical teaching about the life to come.”

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Alcorn on p 79 notes:

“The problem is not that the Bible doesn’t tell us much about Heaven. It’s that we don’t pay attention to what it tells us.”

“Some of the best portrayals I’ve seen of the eternal Heaven are in children’s books. Why? Because they depict earthly scenes, with animals and people playing, and joyful activities. The books for adults, on the other hand, often try to be philosophical, profound, ethereal, and otherworldly. But that kind of Heaven is precisely what the Bible doesn’t portray as the place where we’ll live forever.”

p.80:

IS THE ETERNAL HEAVEN AN ACTUAL PLACE?

“Many people can’t resist spiritualizing what the Bible teaches about Heaven. According to an evangelical theologian, ‘While heaven is both a place and a state, it is primarily a state.”63 But what does that mean? Is any other place primarily a state?”

“Another theologian writes, ‘Paul does not think of heaven as a place, but thinks of it in terms of the presence of God.’64 But when a person is ‘present,’ doesn’t that suggest there’s a place?”

“One book puts place in quotation marks whenever it uses the word to describe Heaven or Hell. It says Paradise is ‘a spiritual condition more than a spatial location.’65 But Jesus didn’t say that Heaven was ‘primarily a state’ or a ‘spiritual condition.’ He spoke of a house with many rooms in which He would prepare a place for us (John 14:2). In Revelation 21-22, the New Earth and New Jerusalem are portrayed as actual places, with detailed physical descriptions.”

“Jesus told the disciples, “I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:3). He used ordinary, earthly, spatial terms to describe Heaven. The word where refers to a place, a location. Likewise, the phrase come back and take you indicates movement and a physical destination.”

“If Heaven isn’t a place, would Jesus have said it was? If we reduce Heaven to something less than or other than a place, we strip Christ’s words of their meaning.”

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Quix: I can’t do justice to Alcorn’s excellent Biblical documentation of the tangible dimensionality of Heaven; the New Heaven and the New Earth; the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven to at least tangibly hover above the tangible New Earth.

Rest assured that Randy Alcorn is exhaustive in his BIBLICAL PROOFS of the literal tangible reality of Heaven now as well as the New Heaven and the New Earth.

It may well be that our spiritual bodies will have dimensional traversing abilities and options that our mortal bodies do not have. However, I agree with Alcorn, Heaven etc. is AT LEAST AS tangible, literally dimensionally real as our present earth is.

And, Colton Burpo in HEAVEN IS FOR REAL would certainly agree. In fact, ALL the convincing, Biblical, authentic Heavenly visits I’ve ever read—the flowers there are MORE sensorially real, tangible, intense, colorful, fragrant—MORE LITERAL—MORE REAL—than tangible objects here are.

We have only experienced in our mortal bodies the FALLEN CREATION—the SHADOW LANDS. The MORE REAL, THE MORE TANGIBLE awaits Believers. Scripture speaks of joy unspeakable and full of glory—not as some sort of VIRTUAL REALITY fed into spiritual bodies encased in some spiritual body-sized test-tube affair in some ethereal virtual reality in the mind of God.

NO! The Bible takes extensive pains to document the TANGIBLE PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, for example. Trees and fruit and truly LIVING WATER are described.

I agree with Alcorn in his excellent treatment of HEAVEN—being able to wrap a BIBLICAL UNDERSTANDING of Heaven around our understanding of our future redeemed abode—helps us better discipline our lives here that we might TRULY GO THERE!

It’s an excellent book. I’ve read numerous convincing authentic believers’ narratives of their visits to Heaven. They are all Biblical. And the are all congruent with Alcorn’s descriptions of Heaven. I think both types of descriptions of our future abode are thrilling in each their own ways. Alcorn’s is much more pedantic and theologically instructional vs phenomenological/experiential.

I think reading both sorts of descriptions affords the best comprehensive understanding and grasp of the realities involved. For those who’ve read this far—THANKS for your bother! I pray God will enliven your understanding of our future abode in ways that will truly invigorate your walk with Him on THE WAY !THERE!—THAT WONDERFUL PLACE !THERE!